Abstract
In June 2013, different right-wing groups emerged in the Brazilian public space rebelling against the Partido dos Trabalhadores, which ruled Brazil at the time leading a large center-left coalition. Since then, a new right-wing has positioned itself in the national political debate, militating in universities and other institutional contexts, and mobilizing an aggressive rhetoric against the leftist discourse. This study aims to identify the different attributes of the right-wing identity formulated in the narratives of right-wing militants in a Brazilian public university, the contradictions in the content of that identity, and the rhetorical-discursive resources mobilized in its construction. We analyzed transcripts of interviews conducted with nine right-wing activists, students from a public university in the Northeast using the speech analysis method. These militants mention three political groups as constituents of the right-wing (conservatives, liberals, and libertarians), but only two are used as categories of self-identification: conservatives and libertarians. Identity attributes such as an appreciation for the truth, the defense of freedom, a distrust of abrupt changes, and the appreciation for the family and Christian religiosity were affirmed as defining the identity of the right-wing. At various times, however, the militants produced statements that contradicted some of these attributes, revealing the ambiguous and contradictory character of the studied militancy discourse.
Keywords:
Identity; Right-wing; Discourse